Tata Literature Live! Literary Awards Shortlists Announced

Mumbai: The shortlists for the five prestigious literary awards conferred by Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest in the Fiction, Non-Fiction and Business categories were announced today. The longlists were announced last week. The Awards are intended to recognise and encourage literary talent across genres, for both established and new writers.

As the LitFest is fully online this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the winners will be announced at a virtual Awards Ceremony, which will be streamed on Sunday 22 November. As has been the convention in previous years, this event will formally close the Festival.

The Shortlists in each category (in alphabetical order), and the eminent Juries that decided the Awards, are as follows:

Tata Literature Live! Book of the Year (Fiction)
(in alphabetical order)
1. Amnesty by Aravind Adiga (Pan Macmillan)
2. Girl Made of Gold by Gitanjali Kolanad (Juggernaut)
3. Memory of Light by Ruth Vanita (Penguin Random House)
4. Prelude to a Riot by Annie Zaidi (Aleph)

Tata Literature Live! Book of the Year (Non-Fiction)
(in alphabetical order)
1. A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J.B.S. Haldane by Samanth Subramanian (Simon & Schuster)
2. The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire by William Dalrymple (Bloomsbury)
3. The Deoliwallahs: The True Story of the 1962 Chinese-Indian Internment by Joy Ma & Dilip D’Souza (Pan Macmillan)
4. Sebastian & Sons: A Brief History of Mrdangam Makers by T.M. Krishna (Westland)

Tata Literature Live! First Book (Fiction)
(in alphabetical order)
1. Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara (Penguin Random House)
2. The Cliffhangers by Sabin Iqbal (Aleph)
3. These, Our Bodies, Possessed by Light by Dharini Bhaskar (Hachette)

Tata Literature Live! First Book (Non- Fiction)
(in alphabetical order)
1. Flood and Fury: Ecological Devastation in the Western Ghats by Viju B (Penguin Random House)
2. Shadow City: A Woman Walks Kabul by Taran N. Khan (Penguin Random House)
3. The Death Script: Dreams and Delusions in Naxal Country by Ashutosh Bhardwaj (HarperCollins)

Tata Literature Live! Business Book of the Year
(in alphabetical order)
1. Excellence Has No Borders: How a Doctorpreneur Created a World-class Cancer Hospital Chain by B. S. Ajaikumar with Hemanth Gorur (Penguin Random House)
2. The CEO Factory: Management Lessons from Hindustan Unilever by Sudhir Sitapati (Juggernaut)
3. The Making of Hero: Four Brothers, Two Wheels and a Revolution that Shaped India by Sunil Kant Munjal (HarperCollins)

Juries for the awards
Each award category is decided by an eminent jury. The juries for 2020 were as follows:

Fiction Jury
 Ashwani Kumar: Author, poet and Professor at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
 Keki N Daruwalla: Poet, writer, former IPS officer; recipient of the Padma Shri and Sahitya Akademi Award.
 Madhavi Menon: Author; Professor of English and Director, Centre for Studies in Gender & Sexuality, Ashoka University
 Shashi Baliga: Visiting faculty, Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai; Executive Director, Literature Live!

Non-Fiction Jury
 Jonathan Gil Harris: Author, Professor and Head of the Dept of English, Ashoka University.
 Manu Pillai: Historian, award-winning author of four books and recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar Award.
 Meena Menon: Independent journalist, author of three books; former Bureau Chief of The Hindu, Mumbai.
 Naresh Fernandes: Founder & Editor, Scroll; author; Poeisis Fellow at the Institute of Public Knowledge at New York University.
 Anil Dharker: Author of six books; columnist; Founder-Director, Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest

Business Jury
 Anil Gupta: Grassroots innovation activist; Founder, Honey Bee Network; author; visiting faculty, IIM, Ahmedabad and IIT, Bombay, and a Padma Shri awardee for management education.
 Kiran Karnik: Former President of Nasscom; a key figure in the growth of India’s IT industry, Member of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, and a Padma Shri awardee.
 Raghunath Mashelkar: One of India’s most renowned scientists; a technocrat, activist and visionary who has been honoured with the Padma Vibhushan.
 Govindraj Ethiraj: Media executive and entrepreneur; Founder & Director, BOOM & IndiaSpend.
 Mini Menon: Award-winning journalist and author; Co-Founder and Editor of Live History India.